No Place Like Home

Like most longtime teachers my experience with former students often comes with their return visits to school. Walking the halls of US again, they reconnect and reminisce with old mentors. Their homecomings are heartening for us teachers, I trust they know. We are proud of and excited about their accomplishments, and chatting with them – within the very walls where they spent with us many of their most formative years – helps remind us why we do what we do with the boys of US today.

In the last year since my appointment, I have had the new experience of connecting with former US students, well beyond Shaker Heights and Hunting Valley, at alumni receptions around the country. In some ways these gatherings are similar to those on campus, as alumni of all ages inquire into what’s happening at US now and indulge their nostalgia for their days here. 

In other ways, though, they are different. Wherever they may have headed after US and whatever they might be doing with their lives, time and again graduates point to their time at US as the most impactful on them: “It was US.” Another refrain comes from fathers and grandfathers. Telling me of their sons’ and grandsons’ lives, I oftentimes hear, “Well, there’s no US here” – with a wistfulness in their voices at the prospect of their boys sharing in the experience they once had as boys back in Cleveland.

Time and distance bring into starker relief the meaning of the US experience, and support for US in the last year has been nothing short of extraordinary. This Report details its extent but also its range:

These are but a few examples of the gifts, including countless hours of volunteered time, offered selflessly for the betterment of the school. This continued support is vital for US, and – as a beneficiary who just attended the inspiring International Boys’ Schools Coalition Annual Conference in Montréal, Québec – I can attest personally to the difference it makes for faculty, staff, and boys.

Thank you for your support for US. Neither the ear-to-ear grin of a graduate returning to campus for the first time nor the spirited atmosphere of scores of alumni getting together would be possible without it. You are helping us to attract and retain outstanding teachers, to shape and refine one-of-a-kind curricular offerings, and to provide boys opportunities outside the classroom that will challenge and fulfill them. We want nothing more than for future generations of US alumni, like those before them, to say “it was US,” more than any other institution, that propelled them forward. You are ensuring our future and theirs.